This Is How the World Ends

A Review by Doug Brown

Many books on global warming are based upon crude computer models (crude compared to our planet's actual climate) and hypothetical what-ifs. Thus they are easily dismissed by skeptics as alarmist litanies of, "Here are some really bad things that could maybe possibly happen if the worst-case outcomes of this model which is built on untested assumptions turn out to be right." Peter Ward, a paleontology professor at the University of Washington (and astrobiologist for NASA), takes a different and much scarier approach. Rather than hypothetical speculations into the future, he starts with actual data from the past. Can we examine the fossil and climate record to identify past instances of greenhouse global warming, and see what happened then? The answer, very disturbingly, is yes.

Read more. http://www.powells.com/review/2007_06_09